Wood Bugs!

Wood bug, wood louse, pill bug, sow bug - these are a few of the common names for my number one garden pest!  Like every living creature, they have a beneficial side.  They help break down material in the soil which eventually enriches it.  I have scads in my compost bins and I'm happy to have them there helping the red wiggler worms turn my kitchen and garden refuse into fine compost.  I'm not happy, however, to have them nibbling away at tiny seedlings in the garden.

Common Wood Bug

Today when I checked on the garden, I noticed that my Lacinato kale seedlings are being attacked by wood bugs and I've lost 3.  Since we live in a wooded area, there are lots of these little creatures around.  They aren't actually insects, but crustaceans - like lobsters!  I've stopped seeding carrots, spinach, beans and other tender plants directly into the soil as the wood bugs will eat them as fast as they come up.  As a result, I've developed a number of strategies to avoid problems.

Lettuces, kale, etc. are started in the potting shed and transplanted in the garden when they can withstand the wood bug predations.  I guess I should have waited a bit longer with the kale!

I now grow carrots in 6" pots, 9 seeds to the pot.  I start them in the potting shed and when the plants have feathered out, I transplant the whole pot in the ground - minus the pot of course!  This is an excellent way to grow carrots, because there's no thinning and you can tuck in a carrot bunch wherever you find extra space.  Harvesting is a breeze because you just dig up the whole clump!

Beans I sow in separate little containers in my potting shed.  When they're big enough to put outside, I plant them in the ground and protect them with a topless, bottomless water bottle.  The clear sides allow sunshine in, but the wood bugs don't climb the sides to get at the plant.  By the time the beans have outgrown the bottle sides, they're big enough to fend for themselves.

I have a wooden rack that I've grown beans on in the past.  It has a wooden frame wide enough to sit sideways on one of my raised beds and it's 8' tall with fencing wire inside the frame.  A bit taller than I asked for, but then I didn't make it so I can't complain!  I'd start the beans as described above and then transplant them on either side of the rack.  The problem was that when the beans reached out for the frame and started to twine around the wire, wood bugs would suddenly appear.  They were hiding under the wooden feet where they sat on the raised bed sides!  To take care of this situation, I liberally sprinkled diatomaceous earth under the feet.  Diatomaceous earth is composed of tiny skeletons whose sharp edges pierce the wood bug exoskeletons.  Before you know it - no more wood bugs under the frame's feet.

There's a lot of organic matter in my garden beds - from not fully degraded compost to wood chips in the SeaSoil.  I'll plant more Lacinato kale, but this time I'll protect the seedlings with water bottles until they're big enough to handle the attacks.  I expect problems with wood bugs, but I'm armed and ready to deal with it.  Wood bugs beware!